"It is important to be clear on what Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said."

1. NDP leader Jack Layton can go ahead and feel "heartened" by the prospect of defeat at the hands of the Taliban, but: "Mr. Layton is wrong, however, that the Brigadier's realism is in line with his own defeatism."

2. Carleton-Smith did not say the Afghan mission is doomed: "He did not say Britain, Canada, the United States and the rest of the NATO and non-NATO countries fighting in Afghanistan should withdraw, or that a secure Afghanistan is no longer vitally important to the West."

3. What Carleton-Smith said wasn't even particularly newsworthy: "It echoes what a panel headed by John Manley, the former Liberal MP, told the Canadian government in a report commissioned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. 'In the end,' the Manley panel wrote in January, 'the counterinsurgency war will have to won by Afghans.' "

4. Carleton-Smith did not say we should just chuck it in and get kissy-face with the Taliban: "Brig. Carleton-Smith also spoke of negotiations, saying, 'If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.' It's a big if, as long as the Taliban demand that all foreign armies leave as a precondition for talks. It's also a big if, as long as the Taliban remain committed to a form of Islamic law incompatible with civilized norms, which include the right of girls to go to school."

3 Comments:

I skimmed over the the responses to Nushin Arbabzadeh's article. Looks reasonable but one struck me, "just another Iranian woman".

Still, examples such as it and the G&M (which is timing out on me, will try again later) should always be kept in the wings as I've already seen Layton's words cited by a supposedly Canadian deontological pacifist elsewhere.